NEW YORK, October 7, 2025 (WAFA) - The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson, Ricardo Pires, maintained that Israel’s “disproportionate response” in Gaza had left children suffering “in their bodies and minds for way too long.”

The UNICEF spokesperson called on Israel to halt its attacks on Gaza and to establish a ceasefire, warning of the grave consequences of Israel’s repeated refusal to allow humanitarian aid into the Strip.

"For nearly two years now, children have paid the heaviest price in this crisis," he said, stressing that children in Gaza have been exposed to "horrors that no child should ever have to look at or live."

He told a UN press briefing in Geneva that an average of one child has been killed or maimed every 17 minutes, and that many have been traumatized, orphaned, and displaced multiple times — “an unacceptable, staggering figure.”

“They’ve been exposed to disease and violence on a scale unprecedented for Gaza,” he continued. “We’ve been denied permission to bring incubators and ventilators to children from the north. They desperately need that to survive. We’re talking about children sharing oxygen masks in order to stay alive.”

UNICEF says that one in five babies in Gaza is now born prematurely, often to mothers weakened by hunger and stress.

T.R.